Céleste Boursier-Mougenot,

Barbican exhibiting a soundscape, installation.
The birds interacting with the environment of gallery, objects and audience,
The audience visiting the aviary, installation, soundscape.

Barbican website:

Trained as a musician and composer, French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways. His installation for The Curve will take the form of a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other instruments and objects. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.

Installation with birds as ‘participant’s and ‘performers’. No audience is allowed to join in,
that would upset the carefully constructed cute bird’s paradise, contrasted with the electric guitar sounds they make.
its on you-tube and the feedback is very positive… the cute birds doing the magic.

No filming allowed, no interaction between visitors and music instruments allowed,
no interaction between visitors and birds allowed. Don’t touch, viewing only…
I tried to get permission to film/photograph but no luck there. I did visit and realised that
one of the reasons not to give permission to photograph might be that the video on YouTube is
in terms of aesthetics a far better experience. On site you realise it is more a child-friendly aviary
that belongs in the London Zoo or Eden Project. In other words the installation and site don’t match.
Pitty because the sounds generated are great. I say sounds because that is all there is. There is nothing
that happens to the sounds that generates an other strucure or layer, other than the incidental one.